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Tracks In The Snow

    Hey, everyone. It was 5 degrees this morning and there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground. The wind has died down since yesterday. Our water is still frozen and I've decided to go to Lowe's and buy a heater to put under the house and thaw the pipes. I hope they don't burst. By the way, the pipes burst because the water shrinks as it gets colder, allowing more water in. Then, as it heats up you need to have a couple of faucets open to allow for the expansion. If you don't, the expanding water has no place to go.
    We took a bit of time off from the weather related chores to hike through the woods and look at tracks. Snow makes an amateur tracker into a good one, if you catch my drift. It's really fun when you can plainly see what is going on. We found a myriad of rabbit tracks and squirrel tracks. There was an abundance of deer tracks, both male and female. The doe has more of a triangular track while the buck leaves two parallel  marks side by side with a space between them. We found the tracks, like an open book, where a full-grown mountain lion jumped from an oak tree at a deer. I saw where the ground was tore up as the deer's hooves slipped in his haste to get away. There was no blood or fur and the buck got safely away after what was, I'm sure, a terrifying experience. On a steep section of trail we found what appeared to be a black bear track that went through a laurel thicket. What I don't understand is why the rascal is not hibernating. Just my luck to have a bear with insomnia hanging about. I plan on looking in my tracker's book and looking up the habits of the black bear. Finally, we found an abundance of turkey tracks. It's rare for us to see turkeys up here. Today the snow made it possible to see where the huge birds even walked down the length of a fallen tree leaving tracks in the deep snow. I saw where one had dug through the snow and dead leaves and flushed a small animal that was living in a hole. How did he know it was there?
    It's amazing how little I discern of the world I pass through until it snows, then the book is opened and you read until your fingers are numb and you plod home to the fireplace and some hot chocolate; here at the green white retreat.
CE Wills

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